


Wildcat Canyon

by cofax



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cancer, the smell of eucalyptus, pounding feet on a fire road in the Berkeley hills.   Posted January 2000.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wildcat Canyon

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by Maria, Marasmus, and JET.

It was foggy in the canyons at this hour. The mist hung heavy in   
the meadow across from the parking lot, and there was only one   
other car parked in front of the wooden fence. Scully locked the   
door of the rental and pocketed the key. She hadn't been here in   
more than fifteen years, she realized, but nothing had changed.   
Well, not much, she amended, when she spotted the portable toilet   
at the edge of the parking lot.

The trailhead was at the top of the parking lot, if she   
remembered correctly. Scully checked her watch and set off at a   
slow jog. The trail started in the bottom of the canyon, its   
wide and trampled surface curving slowly upwards through live   
oaks and manzanita shrub. Clear in the damp soil were the prints   
of other runners, dogs, bicycles, and the occasional horse. It   
was cold; Scully rubbed her hands together, wishing for gloves,   
then pulled the sleeves of her light jacket down over them.

Scully needed this, needed the mist on her face and the uncertain   
surface of the fire road under her running shoes. Sometimes,   
after an autopsy, she just couldn't stay indoors amongst the dead   
and their memories. The soulless furnishings of an office or   
motel room were oppressive in their reminders of the inevitable   
end of all life. She needed the wind and smells of the outdoors   
to wash the odor of rot, of sterility, out of her hair.

She was moving very slowly, she realized, the gradual but   
consistent slope of the trail keeping her steps to a slower   
rhythm than usual. But she didn't mind. She hadn't run much in   
the past month -- the weather had been dreadful and they'd been   
on the road a lot. It didn't bother Mulder to run in the dark in   
a strange city, but Scully was more cautious than that. She   
couldn't run with Mulder very often, either, because his pace was   
too quick: he didn't get the workout he wanted and she always   
ended up winded and frustrated. In this at least, they did   
better alone.

About ten minutes into the run, she felt her body begin to relax   
into the movement, her muscles move more smoothly, the pain in   
her chest and thighs begin to recede. Her hands had warmed up as   
well, so she pushed the sleeves of her jacket up. She was able   
to focus more on her surroundings, and she looked around as she   
crested the next rise of the trail.

The mist was beginning to lift from the hills around her, and the   
trail had temporarily come out of the trees into more open   
country. She could see further now. To her left the hill rose   
sharply, covered in late fall's dry grass and low shrubs, the   
bushes' glossy green foliage dark against the golden hillside.   
To her right the ground dropped away to the level of the creek,   
hidden now by the trees that followed its course. Ahead, the   
fire road continued to loop and climb towards the summit of the   
hills. Despite the fact that this park was only minutes from   
major highways and millions of residents, it was quiet. Scully   
couldn't hear anything other than the breeze through the grass   
and a single jet climbing steeply more than a mile overhead.

This death had been a bad one. The case had appeared interesting   
but not too terrible at first. No children, no mutilations, no   
religious overtones -- instead just a scientist in a high-  
security federal laboratory, dead in her chair with the door   
locked from the inside. Because of the sensitive nature of her   
research, the Justice Department had been called in, and Skinner   
had assigned the case to the X-Files Division.

There was someone else on the trail. Scully tensed momentarily,   
conscious of the fact that her gun was out of reach in the car,   
then forced herself to relax as the figure approached. It was a   
young woman with a black dog, his bushy tail curled jauntily over   
his back and small ears flopping with every step. The woman,   
sweating heavily even in the cool morning, and moving with long   
loping strides, smiled and raised a hand casually as she passed.   
The dog, running off-leash, paused to mark his territory on a   
shrub at the edge of the trail. Then he nosed Scully's hand,   
giving her a friendly lick, before shifting suddenly into warp   
speed and racing down the trail after his owner.

Scully had performed the autopsy last night, working late in the   
County morgue as she carefully sliced into the body of this young   
woman, dead at the age of 33. This brilliant bio-medical   
engineer, who was engaged to a software programmer, and who was   
dying of cancer. That discovery had made her put down her tools,   
step away from the body, and reach for the phone.

The angle of climb suddenly steepened as the fire road approached   
the head of the canyon. Scully downshifted, taking shorter steps   
as she climbed through a copse of eucalyptus trees. The surface   
of the trail was heavily rutted from bicyclists and horses, but   
the climb was short and she soon emerged at an intersection with   
two other trails. That was the hardest part of the run, as she   
recalled: from here she had a long downhill stretch, and then   
about a mile along the canyon floor. She paused to look around   
and catch her breath, stretching the muscles in her calves and   
thighs.

What had appeared to be a classic closed-door mystery, right out   
of Agatha Christie, turned out to be something much less   
intriguing, and more tragic. Laurie Peters had been dying of   
adrenal cancer, and she had known it. The local cops, in an   
sublime display of incompetence, had not even reviewed her   
medical records. Within three hours of identifying the tumors in   
the body, Scully had determined the method and type of poison   
that Laurie had used to take her own life.

She had finished up in the lab around 5:30 a.m. and had headed   
back to the motel. Once there, she quickly realized that there   
was no way she was going to be able to sleep or even stay in her   
room for very long. A stray comment by one of the scientist's   
coworkers the day before had reminded Scully of their proximity   
to this park; and here she was. She had left a note taped to   
Mulder's door, promising to meet him for breakfast around 8:30   
a.m.

They still had a few things to do, to wrap up the case, but   
functionally it was closed as soon as Scully had found the   
poison.

Poison. That was it, she realized, that was why she was out   
here. A brilliant young scientist, dying of cancer . . . the   
parallels were disturbing. Laurie Peters had chosen another path   
than Dana Scully had, but who was she to judge? When she was   
young, the Church had called it the ultimate sin, a turning away   
from the loving hands of God. Scully wasn't sure of that   
anymore, if she ever had been. She knew that God's infinite   
mercy could manifest itself in different ways to different   
people. And merely because *she* had been the recipient of a   
miracle, well, that was no reason to insist everyone else rely on   
them. Miracles don't come for the asking, after all.

The downhill section of the trail was a relief after the steep   
climb. Clammy on her skin under her shirt, Scully's sweat   
chilled her a bit as she picked up speed. Her feet pounding out   
a rhythm, she stopped thinking about the case so she could dodge   
exposed roots and the muddier sections of the trail. The fire   
road was back in the trees now, and Scully was surrounded by tall   
eucalyptus, their distinctive scent filling the air, elongated   
leaves and sections of peeling bark carpeting the ground.

The trail leveled out after about a half-mile, then turned   
sharply to follow the creek. This area was heavily wooded and   
heavily used: the surface of the path was sticky with mud and   
partly-decomposed vegetation. Scully passed several other   
runners and a few dog-walkers. She was moving easily now,   
faster, loping smoothly along despite the mud building up on the   
soles of her running shoes.

She broke out of the trees as the path left the creek for the   
last time to skirt the rim of a broad meadow. The grass was damp   
with dew, the moisture catching the light of the sun as the last   
of the mist burned off. Scully caught a movement out of the   
corner of her eye. She was more relaxed than she usually was in   
the field; instead of reaching for her gun, she merely paused.   
At the far edge of the meadow, still slightly out of focus in the   
trailing edges of mist, was a male deer.

He didn't seem to notice Scully, barely 50 yards away. She held   
her breath as he walked out of the shelter of the trees. He   
lowered his head, nibbled at a shrub, lifted his head again. She   
caught another movement, and another, and realized there were   
half a dozen deer in the trees and shrubs on the far side of the   
clearing. She didn't move until a heavy-set older man, puffing   
along in a dark-blue jogging suit, came trundling down the trail.   
The deer scattered without a sound.

The older man slowed as he approached her. "You all right,   
miss?" He cocked his head in concern.

"Fine, thanks!" Scully flung a smile at him before heading along   
the last stretch of the trail. When she came out into the   
parking lot there were another eight cars around hers, and the   
sun was bright.

Forty minutes later, closing her motel room door, she felt rather   
than saw her partner come up beside her. In the air, she   
registered shampoo, aftershave, and coffee. She put out one   
hand, the other occupied in stuffing her key into her pocket.   
Her fingers shaped themselves around the warmth of a paper cup,   
and she looked up, smiling.

Mulder stood, as so often, a little closer than anyone else   
would. "You're all pink, Scully. What *have* you been up to?"

"I, um, I went for a run up in the hills. Couldn't sleep."

He nodded absently, his mind evidently racing ahead to the day's   
tasks. "Did you have a good run?"

Scully sipped some of her coffee and raised an eyebrow: Mulder   
had gone to Peet's. They walked out of the motel and across the   
parking lot to the car. Students and office-workers streamed by   
on bicycles and buses. A dog barked nearby. A dark-haired man   
on a unicycle spun in smooth circles while he waited for the   
light to change.

"Yeah, Mulder, I had a good run."

**Author's Note:**

> Geographic notes: Wildcat Canyon exists: it's in Tilden Park, in the hills above Berkeley. Peet's coffee is a San Francisco coffee chain with a fanatical customer base. The guy on the unicycle is PinkMan out of uniform.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Impossible Question (The Wildcat Canyon Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/391575) by [wendelah1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendelah1/pseuds/wendelah1)




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